{"id":167586,"date":"2024-11-04T08:58:42","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T08:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/04\/mothers-challenge-government-over-two-child-benefit-cap\/"},"modified":"2024-11-04T08:58:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T08:58:42","slug":"mothers-challenge-government-over-two-child-benefit-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/04\/mothers-challenge-government-over-two-child-benefit-cap\/","title":{"rendered":"Mothers challenge government over two-child benefit cap"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mothers<\/div>


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Two mothers are challenging the government in court over the Universal Credit (UC) two-child benefit policy.<\/p>\n

That two-child cap prevents parents from claiming UC or child tax credit for a third child.<\/p>\n

The women, who cannot be identified, had two or more children non-consensually when they were teenagers, before going on to have more children consensually in later life.<\/p>\n

A non-consensual conception exception, sometimes referred to the rape clause, allows for additional financial support to be given to a mother of two, who then has more children as a result of rape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, the women say the exemption does not easily apply to them because their first two children, who were born as a result of rape, came before their third or more children who were born from consensual relations. <\/p>\n

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is providing legal representation for the women and says the policy is “discriminatory and irrational”. <\/p>\n

Claire Hall, the charity’s head of strategic litigation, said: “They should be able to get the exemption for the non-consensually conceived children, irrespective of at what point they are born.”<\/p>\n

One of the women – known only as LMN – taking High Court against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) eventually received benefits for her third child.<\/p>\n

“She went for years without this support, amounting to thousands of pounds which will not be backdated” CPAG said. <\/p>\n

The second woman – known as EFG – released a statement through CPAG : “If I had been raped after my first two children were born, the exceptions would be applied”.<\/p>\n

CPAG says that both women have missed out on thousands of pounds of support because of the current policy. <\/p>\n

A DWP spokesman said: “We cannot comment on ongoing legal cases”.<\/p>\n

The High Court challenge is expected to take place next year.<\/p>\n

The two-child cap came into effect in April 2017 and has been opposed by anti-poverty campaigners.<\/p>\n

At the time a DWP spokeswoman said: “We have always been clear this will be delivered in the most effective, compassionate way, with the right exceptions and safeguards in place.”<\/p>\n

The spokeswoman was unable to explain how claims would be verified when made by a woman who had never accessed support or told anyone about being raped.<\/p>\n

In 2023 Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC his Labour government would not change the two-child cap and would not commit extra money to benefits without first growing the economy.<\/p>\n

In the past campaigners brought a legal challenge to the Supreme Court against the two-child limit, arguing that it breached parents’ and children’s human rights – that case was dismissed 2021.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two mothers are challenging the government in court over the Universal Credit (UC) two-child benefit policy. That two-child cap prevents parents from claiming UC or child tax credit for a third child. The women, who cannot be identified, had two or more children non-consensually when they were teenagers, before going on to have more children […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/a97e\/live\/66dc6b30-9a4f-11ef-a004-c30f74cf09d7.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[8633,3962,6080,3954,39088,53600],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167588,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167586\/revisions\/167588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}